Bella's Blessings

I just wanted to take a minute to pass on a link that girl-mom's will especially enjoy! After seeing a newborn several weeks ago with less hair than my girls - no lie! - sporting an adorable little bow that was totally staying put (flashback to the failed attempts of the velcro bows we tried with Cassi...), I googled such bows and found a site that seemed to offer what I was trying to find. I placed an order but kept looking around at various sites because I was finding this whole new world of infant accessories! (Hey, I never denied that I'm "such a girl-mom"! :))

I stumbled across Bella's Blessings, whose mission is: "to pour out blessings onto others by using the gifts God has given us", and placed an order there for a few more bows and a handful of completely adorable clips for when the girls hair comes in just a bit more. Lori, the owner of Bella's Blessings, offers dozens of super cute varieties of both bows and clips (for girls of all ages) - as well as beautiful little kiddie jewelry - that she has been making since her daughter was an infant. I will definitely be ordering more from her in the very near future! She and I have communicated through a few emails and I wanted to pass her company along to you. She is a generous, gracious woman who also happens to offer a great product with good prices, very fast shipping, etc. I'm starting to sound like a paid endorsement. :) I'm not, she is just totally deserving of an excellent shout out!

I'll be sure and post pictures of the clips and bows, but I'm clearly having some trouble getting caught up and wanted to provide you all with the link before wasting any more time! Elise and Avery wore adorable red bows from Bella's Blessings to the Miami game last Saturday, so photos are coming soon! :)

Please check out her site! (And check out the "Avery" clip -- not named for my Avery, but very cute all the same! You know we ordered that one...)

Love and Honor: The Next Generation (Part 1 of 2)

Last weekend, Kyle, the girls and I spent lots of time in Oxford, Ohio and on the campus of Miami University (where yes, we will encourage the girls to at least consider attending :)). The beauty and traditions of Miami hold such a place in our hearts, that we figured we'd introduce the girls to them as soon as possible. Homecoming weekend 2008 seemed like the perfect opportunity!

Day 1 (Friday) consisted just of an evening in Oxford. We had dinner uptown at 45 East, where the girls were extremely well behaved despite being tired.


























{Note to self: there are only 2 highchairs in the whole restaurant, one of which seems to have been broken for quite some time.} {Note to management: While many weeks out of the year you cater only to a student body that's something like 99.9% "traditional" students, weekends such as homecoming you might consider having more than 1 working highchair.} Anyway........

After dinner we walked around uptown a bit before heading to the beautiful Hall Auditorium for the combined concert of the Miami University Collegiate Chorale (of which Jen is an alum), and the Miami University Men's Glee Club (of which Kyle is an alum). It is a place we spent so much of our time, so it was nice to have the girls there -- especially during rehearsal before the show, when it wasn't such a big deal if they needed a bottle or decided to yell out :)

During the actual concert, we listened from benches in the foyer so as not to interrupt the concert if the girls decided to fight sleep. By this point, it was considerably past their much-needed bedtime. This proved to be a good idea! :-P

The choirs sounded amazing, as usual, and it was wonderful to catch up with a few very special people between acts. The girls looked awfully cute, too, all dressed up for their first night on the town! :)































And the most random note --

Kyle often talks about Elise's "turtle face". He tried on numerous occasions to describe it for me and even mimic it, but I couldn't really understand what he was talking about. Then I got this shot, and knew in an instant it must be The Face. Ha! She never ceases to amaze me with the facial expressions.....








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Oops!

Seriously, 5 days without a single post... sorry about that :) We were very busy at the end of Kyle's "staycation", and have plenty to share with you!

Until then ...

(I assure you we'll try and take better pictures later!)

Playmat

A while ago, I had decided we needed an area for the girls to play in while we were in the basement for various reasons - games with company, working out, etc. On Friday I ordered from Softtiles.com (a national company whose headquarters are about 4 miles away, with whom I absolutely LOVE working (this is my 3rd time with them for various things)). Anyway, the finished product is just a little spot that will eventually house some toys and activities for the girls when they get a bit bigger!

Pumpkin Carving 2008 - And I'm certainly no Anne Geddes!

Some of you know about my long-standing obsession with the Anne Geddes baby photos. I had intended, from the time I was about 15, to put prints of her work along a chair rail in a nursery that I envisioned long before that. It didn't happen, but that doesn't mean I love her stuff any less. So anyway, as most parents of infants have attempted to do in the recent past, we assumed early this fall that we'd try to get this shot, with a little creative license of course:



















After trying to find a pumpkin big enough for both of our girls (knowing full well that her pumpkin is a fake one -- giving Ms. Geddes a distinct advantage!), we opted for the less difficult (or so we thought) - "stick one baby in a pumpkin" shot (the following 1 image is linked from American Baby Magazine):



















This proved to be more difficult than we thought, at least with our girls! The following, for your viewing pleasure, is a chronicle of our attempts! ;)



Shot 1) Elise standing in pumpkin -- not the goal, but she refused to sit once she felt the goop inside. I can't say I blame her... (Notice the fabulous look of shock)
















Shot 2) Elise: Ok... maybe this isn't too bad...















Shot 3) No, no.. I don't think I really like it.















(Mommy and Daddy give up with her photoshoot. "Let's get Avery," says Jennifer, "even though I'm sure she'll hate it. Remember the 'dip' in the fountain in Chicago? That was just water. She loves water. This should be interesting.....")

Shot 4) Daddy sticks Avery straight in while Mommy is ready for the shot, just in case it works out. It doesn't. She hates it as much as predicted, and there are instant tears!















"Aww, maybe we should have eased her into it like we did Elise. Stand her up," says Jennifer (as Kyle struggles to get her out because she has yanked her arms down INTO the pumpkin, and is fighting any attempt at him getting them out. Fun times!)

Shot 5) Avery: Ahh, freedom. This is at least tolerable...





















Shot 6) Ok, I'm trying my hardest to cooperate here, but this is the best you're going to get. Take it or leave it, then get me out of here!






















So now I'm wondering -- the people whose albums I look at who have successfully done this with adorable outcomes -- do they just not grace you with the failed attempts? Or are my girls a little too prissy for pumpkin gunk right now? :-D

I'm thinking we totally should have opted for this:





















Our finished pumpkins turned out equally as well as the above "portrait session" - and not a fraction better. I must admit they look alright from the road, but we didn't grab a picture of that yet. Oh, well! As usual, we had fun.

Oh - and you might notice 3 pumpkins carved. An odd number, both literally and figuratively. I had decided to get 4 pumpkins this year (one for each of us, of course!). The fourth, though, was the most disgusting, rotten, nasty thing ever as soon as we opened it. Not gonna happen. We took it back and got a refund.


Mickey-o-lantern:


















Minnie-o-lantern:


















FrankenGoofy:

Ride the Ducks

While on bedrest and looking for things to do during our Cincinnati "Staycation", I found out that there is a Duck Tour right here in the Greater Cincinnati area! I had heard great things about these tours, and actually even remembered my dad telling me about seeing the amphibious vehicles during a trip to the Wisconson Dells probably over a decade ago! So, we booked a tour! We figured we wouldn't do a lot of "sight seeing" we hadn't already done by living here for years, cruising the river on B&B Riverboats, etc, but we just wanted to do it for the experience.

It really ended up being a lot of fun, and we did see some new sights! First there is truly "new" sight along the river -- a gorgeous set of murals painted along a floodwall that depict the area surrounding the river from the days before settlers came and buffalo crossed the then-shallow river to the Tallstacks 2008 scene (apparently Tallstacks is being pushed back to 2010 because of fuel costs, but that's a whole different story...). They were absolutely gorgeous, and we can't wait to get back and see them up close! There were also sights new to us, such as a couple of guys camping along the undeveloped parts of the riverbank (West of 'downtown')... apparently they'd been there for months. True!

Anyway, the sight-seeing was actually decent, despite being in our home town, and the actual experience was a different one! We had the whole vehicle to ourselves because we were on the last scheduled tour of a very chilly day. The guide and captain were so much fun, the soundtrack was hilarious.... all in all something I would definitely recommend!

The girls didn't quite appreciate the "quackers" yet (above), but I'm going to venture a guess that someday we'll get more than our fill of quacking around the house! ;)

Four Month Appointment

Yesterday the girls saw Dr B. for their 4-month well-child check. Needless to say (since I keep you well-informed ;)), everything checked out great! He was thoroughly impressed with Elise rolling in both directions (which is apparently a 6-month milestone, not even 4 as we had though.... the girl is crazy). He absolutely enjoyed making Avery talk and smile her giant, open-mouthed toothless grin. Everything checked out well and we were just told to keep on keeping on as we have been.

The vital statistics:

ELISE

Head Circumference: 16.25 inches (47%ile)
Length: 24.5 inches (45%ile)
Weight: 13lb 8oz (34%ile)


AVERY

Head Circumference: 16.25 inches (47%ile)
Length: 24.25 inches (35%ile)
Weight: 12lb 1.8oz (11%ile)



They were both troopers with their shots again.... and we'll go back for more in 2 months!



And in other news, Kyle passed his Step 3 with flying colors!

Segways!

For about 7 years now, Kyle has wanted - desperately wanted - a Segway. He saw them on one show or another, and did a lot of research, etc. It turns out, at the time anyway, they cost about $8K and were totally impractical.

Fast forward to our honeymoon, June 2004. We saw lots of Cast Members at Walt Disney World riding them, and my interest was piqued as well. Over the next couple of years, WDW would start offering tours. So naturally, during our trip in May 2007 we took the longest of 3 tours they offered. After 10 or 15 minutes through various obstacles to "teach us" how to use the personal transporters (it's really quite intuitive), the tour took us through Epcot's World Showcase before that portion of the park even opened to guests. The Segways were put in "turtle mode" to cover Disney's butt for our safety, but they were still fun - and not a lot beats cruising through an empty World Showcase as the sun rises, in this Epcot-loving girl's opinion.

The next few years were spent looking for Segway tours in other cities which we could visit, joking about opening our own franchise in Cincinnati so that we could write off a few Segways of our own (and introduce them to the city, of course). We joked about the fact that we'd have no idea where to ride, since there isn't a whole lot to see except for within a short walking distance downtown. Then finally, this summer, it happened -- Segways in Cincinnati... and at a brilliant location!

Eden Park is one of the coolest, most beautiful areas of the city. There are historic buildings, various statues and memorials, etc .... and more simple than that, a beauty that everyone can appreciate, especially in the Autumn -- Lots and lots and lots of green space and trees, in what would essentially be an urban park if it weren't practically a neighborhood in and of itself. It was the perfect location, and on the flip-side, the perfect way to experience the Park.


But if you know our love for the personal transporters, you know it was about more than that. I can see trees down the street :-P No, in this particular tour, there was no turtle mode. We took those suckers to their max speed of over 12.5 whopping miles per hour. Hey, it might not sound like much.... but have you ridden one? It's pretty sweet! We took them on ginormous hills (both up and down), around lots of hairpin turns on "Snake Road", jumped them off of curbs (for real!), and bounced them around in the grass. And these were the most basic "city sidewalk" versions! Imagine what the x2 can do! One of us even took a huge, embarrassing crash, wherein a body and a segway both tumbled end over end in opposite directions! I won't mention names, but HE is doing just fine..... we're still literally laughing out loud. :) The person who supplied the Segways said we were 'naturals' (hmm...) and pretty much just let us do whatever we wanted, for 2 hours, around the whole Mt. Adams area.

With the price dropping (so far) to about $5,000, our dream is more within reach -- especially considering it doesn't use gas! Not to mention the fact that there are apparently accessories for everything -- passenger cars that hitch to the back, golf bag holders, shopping baskets, you name it! If we ever end up in Celebration, Oxford, Hyde Park, etc where it would make even the slightest sense to add one of these to our fleet (they so are not capable of handling highways yet for longer commutes ;)), you can bet we'll be all over it!



(Yeah, not a great photo. The poor Segway chick (cool as she was) had some serious trouble with the camera... and it was my old, very basic, very simple and user-friendly one. Oh, well! At least the rockin' vests show up loud and clear.)

Overwhelmed....

.... with Joy.



I can't sleep tonight. At first it was because one of my daughters forgot how. Still, she's been asleep for nearly an hour now, and yet there I found myself -- lying in bed with tears streaming down my face.

A year ago today (10/22) was one of hands down the most uncertain day of my life. It's not common knowledge, nor is it about to become common knowledge at 3:44am (on an internet blog no less) what kinds of things Kyle and I faced before these beautiful girls were given to us. After lots of medical crap, hearing lots of awful news, and both of us undergoing multiple invasive procedures, Kyle and I were left on this day (-366) with the most important reminder - one that had been true long before we ever even met. The reality is, and always was, that God knew what was in store for us. When all was said and done (ok, and really the whole time), He was the one in control.

One year ago, I had 2 lives growing inside of me that were nothing short of about 9 cells each. We waited with such incredible uncertainty and anxiety.... in a place so overwhelming that one can't likely imagine unless he/she is faced with the same circumstances. We were trying desperately to understand what His plan was for us, trying to cast our cares on Him, but we were so heavy-hearted that, admittedly, the task seemed impossible.

And yet, while I was (we were) at the most unsure moment in my life, the Creator was fast at work already, making two beautiful, perfect little girls - exactly as He had planned them - from practically nothing. Isn't that just true of who He is? He really knows what's going on, even when - ESPECIALLY when - we don't have the first clue.



I'm so thankful for the folks at the RE office who were with Kyle and I along this journey, who were so supportive. I'm so thankful for advances in medicine that allow us to understand the human body, allow us to treat ailments and save lives and find answers to some pretty big questions.

But more than this -- so much more than this -- I am thankful for the God who knew Elise Nicole and Avery Jade before they were born... who formed them in their mother's womb (hey, that's me!)... who knows the plans He has for them, and for me, and for you.



I thought about apologizing for the sap, especially at such an early hour. But if I'm sitting here all morning practically weeping at God's grace, then I thought maybe you should be reminded of it, too. :)

Niederman Family Farm

Every year for as long as Kyle and I have been together (and maybe longer, for the Lawless family?) we've been going to Niederman Family Farm for a corn maze and hayride. We look forward to enjoying the playgrounds, fire pits, petting barnyard, etc when the girls are a bit bigger; Saturday evening we took them for their first time! We spent a couple of hours in the maze in the afternoon, then took a hayride while they slept in the early evening. My mom made a few s'mores for us (the youth group happened to be there on the same night, with a firepit ... although our paths barely crossed since they arrived much later!).

Enjoy a few pictures..... and yes, it was REALLY cold!

Cereal! Yum?

Yesterday, we introduced Rice Cereal! As you may recall, we debated waiting a while since the girls came a month early and had such a poor start with feeding, until quite recently. One of Kyle's colleagues though, who is in practice with the girls' pediatrician, said to go for it... just maybe not very aggressively.

Well, considering the girls are consistently sleeping 11-14 hours a night, they're hardly able to get enough food during their waking hours to keep them satisfied ... so we decided it was definitely time!

As you might predict, they were a bit bewildered by the sensation. They didn't hate it, except for the fact that we waited until they were hungry to feed them, and they - especially Elise - were quite ticked that we were shoving something in their mouth "instead of feeding them"! :)

Elise before even starting... we totally should have heeded her warning! (Patience is CLEARLY not her strong suit!)















They took several tablespoons though (made from 1oz formula), as well as their bottles. The funniest thing, in my opinion, was definitely when they'd latch their lips onto the spoon and try to suck the cereal off! :)

They look so much smaller in their highchairs than we had anticipated!



























First bites!







































They actually both did very well, and didn't really spit the cereal out at all! They didn't exactly know WHAT to do with it, but most (if not all) of it that made it in, stayed in! :-P

Four Months!

Thursday was also the girls 4-month "birthday"! I know I've said this before, but can you believe it?! We are so blessed with such wonderful, beautiful little girls.... and the time is flying by faster than we ever could have imagined!

Four Month Photos (lots more at Picasa site, link in right sidebar):





















































































Some new things the girls were up to, as of Thursday:

- Avery still doesn't like to work too hard ;), but just "in time" (if there were such a thing), on the evening of her 4-month birthday, she rolled from back to belly, and just had a little bit of trouble getting that arm out. She was so pleased with herself, it was hilarious!

- Eilse, on the other hand, continues to roll fluidly in whatever direction she wants, but has also finally started really focusing on the world around her and smiling and interacting so much more. They are on different "tracks" of development, but are certainly both ending up right where they should be!

- We'll have an appointment with Dr. B. next Wednesday, but I imagine the girls have gained weight and grown in length quite well! They really are getting so big! They are still wearing only 0-3 month clothes (and hoping that our Christmas stuff fits by Christmas!), but they fill them out perfectly now. Outfits are starting to look so much sweeter since they fit into them well finally! :)

- Both Elise and Avery are enjoying being upright more, as I mentioned when we attempted to bring out the saucer and jumper. We've propped them up sitting in various places, and they are always so thrilled! They're such shorties though, that the "tripod sit" still eludes them a bit, because in order to balance with their hands on the ground they have to essentially fold in half! :)


We'll provide more updates after the appointment on Wednesday!

Zoo #2!

On Friday, after playing a bit in the morning and then checking out of the hotel, the girls and I headed for the Columbus Zoo while Daddy attended and presented at the conference.

On our way to the zoo, I pulled off at a small local park to see how the new(ish) camera handled fall foliage shots. It'll do! :)
















I'm never really impressed with the zoo in C'bus, although it has SUCH fabulous potential.... but the real reason we only stayed 2 hours or so was because it was so doggone cold! The girls were really cranky from a bad night of sleep in the hotel pack & plays, so any discomfort didn't help the situation! They did look awfully cute, though, all bundled up!



























We did see a few cute animals that are not currently at the Cincinnati Zoo, and I personally loved being in the cold... thrilled that Fall is here (again, and hopefully this time to stay a while!)



























After a quick morning at the zoo, we spent the next few hours in the warmth and familiarity of the Polaris Mall.... nothing too exciting, even considering they have a Disney store. It's such a small one, and it just made me mad that ours closed! ;)

We picked up Kyle at around 2pm, and headed back home. Just a quick trip this time!

HallZOOween (except not really) and a mini-road trip!

On Thursday, October 16th, we had planned to attend the first day of Cincinnati Zoo's "HallZOOween". I had received (and have since verified seeing) numerous publications stating that HallZOOween would be October 16, 18, 19, 25 and 26, 2008. Apparently something changed in the last few weeks, and the Zoo declined to inform its members or the public. The new dates were/are October 11, 12, 18, 19, 25 and 26. Too bad we can't make any of those, and that we had made plans to take the girls on the 16th. I was quite annoyed, but the girls still looked cuter than cute in their intended HallZOOween onesies!





















































Elise and Avery on the Train


























We only spent a couple of hours there since Mommy was in a bad mood :), but got a few great pictures of some very photogenic animals. They were all very visible since it was a cool, crisp fall morning!

Lions and Rhinos and Bears, oh my! (And a random question ... have you seen this, the cutest video on the planet of a baby polar bear? It's totally worth 1:38 of your time. Kyle and I have watched it dozens of times over the last 2 years and still love it!)







































Our friend, Baby Puumba, getting much bigger!














After grabbing lunch at the zoo, we were off to Columbus for the American College of Physicians Ohio conference (state counterpart to the regional meeting we went to last month in Chicago). We checked into the Hyatt downtown, and hung out for a little while before heading to Easton for a little shopping and dinner at BD Mongolian BBQ. (Side note: At this particular location of Mongos, the grillers had shirts that read "Wolverine Tastes Like Chicken". Classic!)

The girls, hanging out with their daddy before dinner:



























(And we will leave it at that.... the "after dinner" pictures are much less desirable, considering the girls were monsters by the time we missed their bedtime!) :-P